As of last week, Hoopla is available to Mesa County residents via our local library. What all can you do with this service?

If you have a Mesa County Library card, you can access Hoopla immediately. What will you find once you have access to this streaming service? You'll be able to borrow, instantly stream, or download content including audiobooks, comics, eBooks, TV, music, and movies.

I've been telling everyone about this service for some time. It just went live at the Mesa County Libraries last week. Now that it's active at our library, I felt it time to give it a test run. According to Hoopla, these titles might be of interest to me.

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Synchronic - This is a fairly recent movie release. I paid a couple of bucks to rent it about two weeks ago. Little did I know it would soon be available to access for free on Hoopla.

The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog - I think I'll pass on this one. It's not entirely clear what criteria Hoople used to determine this should be among my movie suggestions.

Dead Air - I narrowed the search to movies released in the last seven days. Even with that criteria, Hoopla produced nine titles. That's pretty cool - nine new movie releases in seven days. Back in the good old days of movie rental stores, I don't recall them having nine new releases in a week.

Let's get out of the movies and switch to music. The search was narrowed to new releases in the last seven days. Even with that narrow search, Hoopla produced 37 titles.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday (Music from the Motion Picture) - This album is available for streaming or for download. From the time you check it out, it remains available to you for seven days.

Whitesnake: The Blues Album Remix 2020 - Did you ever think there would be a day when you could check out a Whitesnake album from the library?

David Arkenstone: Celtic Chillout Beats - Same question... did you ever think you would be able to access New Age titles from a public library?

This new service is truly proving itself to be valuable. I'm going to search a few more and then give it a rest. I haven't read a comic book since 1975, but for the sake of exploring the usefulness of this service, I'll give it a shot. Let's do the same thing and check how many new titles have become available in the last seven days. According to Hoopla, they have 20 new titles. Let's check out one.

Archie Jumbo Comics - I had absolutely no idea they were still publishing Archie comics. Conclusive proof as to how valuable the library can be. It must be pretty good. Users gave it four out of five stars.

How about audiobooks? I think I'll search by recommendations. I'm not sure what criteria Hoopla uses to determine suggestions for me, especially since I just signed up and haven't searched or checked anything out. In any case, here we go.

Leopard's Prey - This 2013 title must be good. Users gave it a four-and-a-half out of five rating. This book is clearly a mystery, one of my least favorite genres. While it is clearly a well-received title, I'm not sure how it came up in my suggestions.

Glamour Ghoul - This is the newly released biography of Maila Nurmi. You might remember her as Vampira, the television horror host of the 1950s. I'm reading this book right now. In my case, I ordered this book almost a year ago. The cost was roughly $20. Along came COVID-19, and the release of the book was pushed back to January 2021. I received it the day it came out. Little did I know it would be available this quickly via the library.

The possibilities are endless with Hoopla. I searched a few obscure titles, and in some cases, came up with hits. I'm not one for audiobooks, but then again, perhaps it's time to start. My tastes have always been geared to good old-fashioned books. Then again, the closest thing I had to a new year's resolution for 2021 was to read more books. It appears as though Hoopla is exactly what the doctor ordered.

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